When printing text data or image data on recording paper using a printer connected to a personal computer, a printer driver must be first installed on the personal computer for controlling the printer. The printer driver is generally distributed to the user in a form stored on a CD-ROM or other storage medium, or in a form already incorporated in the operating system of the personal computer.
Conventionally, printer drivers have been installed by executing an installation program, often called an installer. For example, when installing a printer driver from a CD-ROM, the CD-ROM is first inserted into a media-reading device provided in the personal computer. In this case, the installer is started automatically. The installer displays a window on the display of the personal computer having an install wizard format. Through this window, the user specifies the directory (folder) for installing the driver and performs other settings. After inputting an install command, the printer driver stored on the CD-ROM is installed in the specified directory.
When the printer driver is installed on the personal computer, a virtual printer is created on the personal computer and entered in a registry managed by the operating system. Predetermined printing conditions for the virtual printer are set as default values. The user selects a virtual printer when transmitting printer data from the personal computer to the printer to perform a printing operation. At this time, the user can manually set each of the plurality of settings constituting the printing conditions using a mouse or other input device in the Properties window of the virtual printer. After completing the settings of the printing conditions and inputting a print command, the printer executes the printing operation according to the set printing conditions.
However, there has been a trend in recent years to increase the number of settings in the printing conditions as the printers are being provided with more functions. With this increase in settings, more operations and more time are required for setting the printing conditions. This is particularly inconvenient to users wishing to change settings on the printer as the user must switch through numerous screens and often cannot easily reach the screen needed to perform the desired setting.
Japanese unexamined patent application publications Nos. 2004-38296 and 2002-287924 propose a technology for registering a plurality of virtual printers having different default printing conditions on a personal computer, and enabling the user to execute a printing process according to desired printing conditions simply by selecting the virtual printer conforming to the desired printing conditions. In this way, desired printing results can be easily obtained without setting each of a plurality of printing conditions to the desired values